Souleymane Coulibaly interview: Ivory Coast Under-17 star, Tottenham youth, legal disputes and non-League
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Jay Harris
The former Spurs youngster has packed a lot into his career and life - he is now playing in England's ninth tier
Souleymane Coulibaly was a last-minute addition to Ivory Coast’s squad for the Under-17 World Cup in 2011. It was an unexpected opportunity which he did not waste.
Coulibaly scored nine goals in four games at that tournament, held in Mexico, and earned a life-changing move to Tottenham Hotspur from Italian side Siena. He played for the reserves alongside Harry Kane and trained with Gareth Bale and Rafael van der Vaart, under then manager Harry Redknapp.
It should have been the start of a glittering career, but Coulibaly never made a senior appearance for Spurs.
Now, after playing in six different countries, including Egypt, where he dramatically fell out with employers Al Ahly, the striker represents Pickering Town in English football’s ninth tier, where he is the league’s joint-top scorer this season with 20 goals.
“I’m trying to finish my career peacefully,” Coulibaly, who turned 31 on December 26, tells The Athletic. “I got a lot of offers from Italy and Iran, but I don’t want to go. I’ve been abroad for seven years. I bought a house in Hull, and I want to stay close to my children. I don’t need to prove to anybody who I am.”
Coulibaly grew up in Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, but moved to Italy in 2009 at age 15 to live with his father.
Coulibaly left his West African homeland due to the political unrest caused by the civil war between President Laurent Gbagbo’s government and rebel forces led by the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI). Fighting broke out in September 2002, and a peace agreement was not reached until May 2007. Tensions remained high, and the conflict was briefly reignited by a presidential election in October 2010.
The young Coulibaly played for an amateur side in the Tuscany region before he joined Siena’s academy — a year before future Spurs head coach Antonio Conte took charge of the club’s first team. Ivory Coast Under-17s head coach Alain Gouamene invited him to a trial in France a few weeks before the 2011 World Cup for that age group. He impressed, and Gouamene stuck him straight into the starting XI.
“Everybody wants to play for their country,” Coulibaly says. “I was happy. My team-mates were amazing, but it wasn’t easy coming in and taking the place of their No 9.”
Souleymane Coulibaly celebrates scoring for Ivory Coast against Brazil at the 2011 FIFA U17 World Cup (Gerardo Zavala/Getty Images)
Coulibaly started and scored in Ivory Coast’s opening game, a 2-1 loss to Australia.
Their next fixture was against Denmark, who had qualified for the tournament for the first time under now Tottenham head coach Thomas Frank. Coulibaly scored a first-half hat-trick and added a fourth in the 69th minute. Frank could not remember Coulibaly’s name when he was asked about the forward in a Spurs press conference this month, but recalled “someone physically strong” scoring all Ivory Coast’s goals in a 4-2 defeat that ended the Danes’ chances of reaching the knockout stage.
Coulibaly then scored another hat-trick, including an overhead kick, in a 3-3 draw with Brazil in the final group match. Paris Saint-Germain’s future captain Marquinhos was an unused substitute for Brazil that day. Ivory Coast were eliminated by France in the round of 16, but Coulibaly was again on the scoresheet against a side which included future senior internationals Sebastien Haller and Aymeric Laporte.
In a strange twist of fate, while Coulibaly has never played for Ivory Coast at senior level, Haller scored their winner in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations final, having switched allegiances in 2020.
“When you come from Ivory Coast, you’re not scared about playing anybody,” Coulibaly says. “You’re small, but you play with big players and adults. In my mind, this was my first and last chance to show what I could do. Anytime I scored, I wanted to score more. My team-mates wanted to celebrate and dance but I said, ‘Let’s go and play.’
“That was my hunger because I came from a poor family. Everybody was rooting for (me). And the country wasn’t in a good place. Everything I did was for my family and Ivory Coast, to make peace.”
When Coulibaly first moved to Italy, he noticed one of his team-mates throwing their football boots in the bin. Coulibaly retrieved them. He had grown up playing barefoot on the sandy pitches scattered around Abidjan.
Everything changed after he won the Golden Boot award at that Under-17 World Cup.
“I told my agent I just wanted to play football,” Coulibaly says. “He took me to Real Madrid because (their manager at the time) Jose Mourinho wanted me and they showed me their stadium. I returned to Italy, and Tottenham visited me. They showed me their plan (for my development) and the new training ground, which wasn’t finished yet.
“I moved in July 2011, and played for the youth teams. My managers were Tim Sherwood and Les Ferdinand. Chris Ramsey helped me a lot, too. We had a lot of good players in the reserves: Kane, John Bostock, Andros Townsend, Alex Pritchard, Tom Carroll. Kane worked very hard. Nobody can deny that. He’s a good lad.”
Coulibaly playing for Spurs against Inter in the under-19 Next Gen Series (Tony Marshall/Getty Images)
Coulibaly started learning English and player liaison officer Roberto Balbontin, who still works at Spurs, helped him settle in.
He scored against Inter and PSV in the group stage of the Next Gen tournament, a cup competition for under-19s which was scrapped after two seasons, in 2011-12. He also got a stoppage-time winner against Stevenage in the third round of the FA Youth Cup and regularly trained with the Tottenham first team.
“Emmanuel Adebayor, Gareth Bale, Peter Crouch, Van der Vaart, Luka Modric — I learned from everybody,” Coulibaly says. “Sometimes I would speak to Younes Kaboul and Adebayor, because they knew French. Jermain Defoe helped me a lot. We would do finishing (drills) together.”
After 18 months, Coulibaly pushed for a loan move so he could experience senior football. He spent the second half of the 2012-13 campaign with Grosseto in Serie B, then joined Bari, also in Italy’s second tier, on a permanent deal.
“Spurs did everything for me,” he says. “I visited Africa on holiday and I was sick. I nearly died. They took me back and looked after me. They gave me another contract. The only thing I regret in my life is to not have given back to them for the first team.”
Coulibaly didn’t play a first-team match for Bari either, as he spent the 2014-15 season on loan with third-division Pistoiese before returning to England with Peterborough United, another third-tier side. A further loan followed, this time to Newport County in fourth-tier League Two, and then he joined Kilmarnock in the Scottish top flight. Coulibaly enjoyed the best period of his career in Scotland. He scored eight times in 21 league appearances for Kilmarnock, including a stunning long-range strike in a 6-1 defeat to Celtic.
“When we played against Celtic, you could never reach their box,” he says. “We had to defend in a low block. So when I got a chance, I put all my power into (the shot). As I shot, one of my team-mates said, ‘What the f**k?’, and when I scored he said, ‘Well done’.”
Coulibaly loved his time with Kilmarnock, based a short drive south of Glasgow, but was tempted by an offer to head back overseas.
He joined Al Ahly, the Cairo club who have won the Egyptian league title and African Champions League more than any other side, in January 2017 for £800,000. Coulibaly scored six goals in nine league games before his move turned sour.
He says he struggled to find a school for his children due to visa issues and describes it as a stressful time for him while his wife was pregnant. He also alleges Al Ahly withheld his passport. Coulibaly says of his exit from the club: “We played a game (abroad). When we came back, I had my passport and I just flew (to England). They told me to return, but I said, ‘I cannot be in a situation where you own my passport.’ It was good money, but it was tough.”
The Egyptian club has always strongly denied Coulibaly’s claims, telling The Athletic in a statement, “Al Ahly did not withhold the player’s passport at any time, which is how he was able to leave the country.”
Al Ahly sued for a breach of contract in June 2017. In April 2018, FIFA ruled Coulibaly was liable to pay his former club $1.4million, and that decision was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
On the matter, Al Ahly told The Athletic: “Coulibaly was undoubtedly a very good player during his time at Al Ahly, and we had high expectations. The club fully supported him. The true reasons behind his decision to leave remain unknown to us, and only the player can explain. Had Al Ahly violated any regulations, the (FIFA and CAS) decision would not have been issued in our favour.”
Coulibaly in 2019 during his short spell with Partick (Rob Casey/Getty Images)
“I thought I was finished and wouldn’t play football anymore,” Coulibaly says about his frame of mind when leaving Egypt.
He joined second-division Partick Thistle back in Scotland in August 2018, but the Egyptian Football Association refused to grant an international transfer certificate (ITC). FIFA granted a temporary ITC in October after a request from the Scottish FA. Coulibaly only made four substitute appearances for Partick.
A move to Tunisian side ES Sahel in May 2019 reignited his career.
Coulibaly scored 21 times in 52 appearances, form that took him to the brink of a senior debut for Ivory Coast — exactly a decade after his heroics at that Under-17 World Cup in Mexico. He was an unused substitute for an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Ethiopia in March 2021 and trained with Nicolas Pepe, Eric Bailly and Wilfried Zaha, who were all playing in the Premier League for Arsenal, Manchester United and Crystal Palace respectively at that time.
However, while he was performing well for ES Sahel, with his case involving Ah Alhy still being resolved, Coulibaly says off-field issues led to him moving on again. A 32-page document CAS released in 2023 provides the full picture of a complex situation.
According to the CAS document, in October 2019, ES Sahel agreed to pay Al Ahly the $1.4million on Coulibaly’s behalf across four payments, with the total amount due by July 2021. In January and March 2020, Al Ahly filed two separate claims with world football’s governing body FIFA, claiming ES Sahel had missed deadlines for instalments.
In July 2020, FIFA ordered ES Sahel to pay Al Ahly $1.4million plus interest and banned them from registering new players, with Coulibaly suspended until the payment was settled or for a maximum of six months. ES Sahel and Coulibaly appealed the punishment but it was upheld by CAS. In January 2022, ES Sahel agreed to pay Al Ahly $1.9m.
But still the drama was not over. The following month, Coulibaly said to ES Sahel that they had failed to pay him for three months.
Coulibaly terminated his contract and filed a claim with FIFA against ES Sahel for a breach of contract. The affair ended with FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) ruling in the player’s favour, but being suspended and spending so much time fighting in the courts disrupted his career. The Athletic has approached ES Sahel for comment on the case.
After leaving ES Sahel in summer 2022, he briefly played for Karmiotissa in Cyprus and Algeria’s ES Setif.
Coulibaly had come agonisingly close to achieving his dream of representing Ivory Coast. Instead, however, he will be watching them compete at AFCON 2025 from his sofa with his children — as long as none of their games clash with Pickering’s ones. The Yorkshire club are ninth in the Northern Counties East Football League Premier Division, 10 points behind Barton Town and Tadcaster Albion, who occupy the final play-off spots.
Man of the match | 🐟
Two goal hero Souleymane Coulibaly takes today’s man of the match award in our @NCEL premier division fixture against Thackley. #UpThePikes 🐟 pic.twitter.com/4YaiLZpdtp
